Diversification Decisions of Family SMEs under Uncertainty: Goals as a Rule of Thumb

Doucet Pablo (), Requejo Ignacio () and Isabel Suarez-Gonzalez
Additional contact information
Doucet Pablo: Business Administration Department and IME, University of Salamanca, Campus Miguel de Unamuno, s/n, E-37007, Salamanca, Spain
Requejo Ignacio: Business Administration Department and IME, University of Salamanca, Campus Miguel de Unamuno, s/n, E-37007, Salamanca, Spain

Entrepreneurship Research Journal, 2023, vol. 13, issue 3, 567-600

Abstract: Leveraging on the behavioural mixed gamble lens, we contend that heterogeneity in organisational goals leads to different diversification behaviours in family firms. Using survey and archival data on a sample of 988 family SMEs homogenous in their (high) family involvement level, we show that family SMEs that pursue nonfinancial (financial) goals exhibit lower (higher) probability of extending the boundaries of the firm to new product and/or market domains. Interestingly, in the face of threats, only those family SMEs that prioritise financial goals exacerbate their propensity to diversify, while increased vulnerability leads to an even lower probability of adopting diversification decisions among family SMEs with nonfinancial goals.

Keywords: family firms; organisational goals; diversification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/erj-2021-0436 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:erjour:v:13:y:2023:i:3:p:567-600:n:10

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/erj/html

DOI: 10.1515/erj-2021-0436

Access Statistics for this article

Entrepreneurship Research Journal is currently edited by Chandra S. Mishra and Ramona K. Zachary

More articles in Entrepreneurship Research Journal from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().